


Life as we Know it

by modestroad



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Ableism, Angst, Drug Use, Dysfunctional Family, F/F, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Major Character Injury, Traumatic Brain Injury
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-14
Updated: 2014-11-21
Packaged: 2017-12-26 14:23:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/966976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/modestroad/pseuds/modestroad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Regina's, Emma's and Henry's lives are forever changed because of a terrible misunderstanding followed by a near deadly encounter. Now they must fight to try and put their lives back together and find the happy ending they all deserve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A call from the past

Emma gets the phone she was dreading one stormy day of August.

Kid’s driving her nuts with his music, some loud new rock shit, to the point she’s thinking to call Neal and send him to his place for the weekend, but she knows it’s not fair to him. Neal’s out all week, trying to make a living and be a good father to a son that seems desperate to drive all of his parents away.

Okay, that’s not true. She feels ashamed just by thinking about it and hates herself for even thinking that for her son. He’s been through a lot the last five years. He has seen more than he should and has firsthand experience to how fucked up life can be. He thought that the Evil Queen was bad, well, nothing’s bitchier than life.

“Henry, turn the damn music down!” she yells from downstairs when she hears the phone ringing and her tone sounds so much like his other mom that she has to stop for a second. She always was the fun mom, the cool one, the one that didn’t ground him and let him eat ice cream before dinner.

She wants to be that mom so much it hurts, but now she’s the mom that yells at him to do his homework, quit skipping class and stop hiding behind his anger. Her boy is angry and there’s nothing she can do but watch him dye his hair and nails black and steal smokes from her pack.

She can’t really talk now, can she? She’s the one that run away from home (and if she wants to be honest, it was one of the good one’s) to be on her own because she was angry with everything and everyone; with her parents that didn’t want her, her foster parents that were jerks, and her asshole boyfriend that cheated her with her best friend.

As angry as Henry is, he’s still here, with her, and if she has to put up with his music then that’s a price she’s willing to pray.

There are worst things that black nails and pierced ears for an angry teenager and she has done it all. Getting pregnant and in jail before her eighteenth birthday must be a hard record to break even if you are the son of the Evil Queen.

“Yeah?” She answers the phone and lets a curse when the music gets louder. “Can you hold for a moment?”

She doesn’t wait for an answer; she drops the phone to the table and runs the stairs up two at the time. “Lower the damn music!” She hits the door with the ‘DO NOT ENTER’ sight, first with her palm and then, when it doesn’t work, with her foot and only then the volume goes down and she can think again. 

Her peace is temporary; the door opens and she takes a step back or else she’s going to fall and make an ass of herself, and that’s the last she needs right now. Henry, already taller than her, he’s looking at her with hateful eyes and, Jesus, is that pot she can smell?

“Happy?” He asks and he looks so much like his mom, so much like Regina, back when Emma was a stranger in this town and Regina was trying to protect her curse that Emma can only stare at him. “What?”

How can she tell a boy who believes that his mother left them because of him that when he’s angry he looks exactly like her?

“Keep the volume down or – “

“Or what?” His face changes into an angry grin and she has to fight the urge to smack it from him.

“Or I’m charging you for drugs. Don’t think I can’t smell it.” 

“You wouldn’t do that,” he’s challenging her now and they both know it; arms crossed in front of him, cocky as hell, and damn him, but he’s right; she won’t do it. She takes him in and she has lost him forever.

But she knows a thing or two about bluffing. “You don’t know what I’m capable of.” And that seems to shut him up, unnerves him a little before he rolls his eyes and with a “Whatever” he closes the door to her face. 

The music stops though and she smiles with the small victory before she remembers that she has someone on the phone waiting. Running down the stairs, she almost falls to the last one, she grabs the phone and says a breathless, “Hello?”

The other line is silent for a moment and Emma can hear noises at the background but can’t make much of it. “Hello?” She says again and there’s a woman on the other side, asking her to speak with Emma Swan. “Yeah, this is she, but whatever you’re selling I’m not interesting.”

The lines goes silent for enough time for Emma to think that the other woman hang up on her and she’s ready to do the same, when another voice, this time a man, asks her a few information before telling her the news that are going to change her life once again. When he finishes and she hangs up the phone all she can do is stand on the same spot and shake. So much that even Henry seems worried five minutes later when he comes down for a snack.

“Emma?” He asks from the third step and this is her son again, the little boy who had so much hope and worry to his eyes, she’s staring at her son again and she’s not sure if she can say the news to him alone. 

Shit, she’s still trying to accept what the man told her. Henry…he won’t be able to handle the news and, fuck, this is going to break them. _This_ is going to break him and he already been through a lot. Evil Queens and sleeping curses, pirates and mad men with guns and magic beans, and little boys that realized with the worst possible way that words hurt more than the deadliest weapon.

He takes the last few steps in a blur. “What’s wrong? Is it Neal?” 

She shakes her head and watches him sit down because he knows. He knows before she can have a chance to tell him. “Mom. It’s mom.” He sounds so small when he whispers that word and Emma doesn’t realize that she’s hugging him until she feels hot tears to her skin. 

“I have to go to Portland,” she says, her voice cracking. “That was from the hospital. I have to go to Portland.”

“No,” he jerks away from her hug and wipes his tears with the back of his palm. “I’m coming with you. If you’re going I’m going.”

“Henry-“

“I’m not asking.” He pushes her harder and she takes a step back, his face a grimace of anger and pain. “I’m telling.”

She licks her lips and tries to be the adult here. “I’m going to ask Snow to come over-“

“I’m coming. Read my lips, Emma,” he says her name as if it burns him. “I am coming with you. You can call grandma, grandpa, the whole damn town, that doesn’t change the fact that I’m coming with you. If she’s…If my mom is…I want to see her. If she’s…” 

He stops, turns his back on her, and her heart tights in her chest when she sees the tears rock his body. She opens her mouth to say something when he’s hugging her once more, tight, as if he’s afraid that she’ll disappear like Regina did a year ago, whispering over and over again that it’s his fault, and all Emma can do is rock him like he’s three only she never had the chance to do that when he was a baby.

But perhaps she can do something more, something better. 

“She’s not dead, kid.” He raises his head to look at her and for the first time in a year his eyes doesn’t shine with anger or pain, but with hope. Emma wipes a tear that tries to escape from his eye with her thump and smiles. “Henry, your mom’s not dead.”

 

**One Year Ago**

 

“Okay, I have to ask.” Emma takes a fry from her plate, looks first at her son and then at her partner, takes a bite and without waiting to swallow she says, “Santa is real, right?”

Henry grins like an idiot, but it’s the sound of Regina’s laughter that has her mesmerized; the Evil Queen has an evil laugh. Granny looks at them, not sure if she has to reach for her bow or call for an exorcist when Emma, laughing, makes a signal that’s everything’s fine. Regina might have an evil laugh, but her evil ways are behind her.

“He is, isn’t he? I knew it!” 

“I can’t confirm nor deny that,” Regina, always the politician, says. 

“He’s not.” Henry, the little shit, steals one of her fries and Emma looks at Regina for support.

Regina shrugs her shoulders. “He’s a growing boy and you should learn to eat something a little healthier for breakfast.”

“What’s wrong with my burger and fries? It’s a full breakfast.”

“In which country?” Henry grins at her and steals another fry.

Okay, perhaps they are right, mother and son, and maybe she needs to change her eating habits, but she had a burger and fries for breakfast for years and she’s fine, isn’t she? She goes for run three times a week and she even tried that power Pilates Regina likes so much. It’s not as if Ms. Pancakes-with-extra-syrup-but-I’m-having-a-salad-for-lunch is any better.

Emma is about to comment that when Regina wipes her lips and says, “And you, Henry, are wrong. “

“Wait,” Emma looks first at Regina, then at Henry and back to Regina. “Santa is real? Are you kidding me?”

“No, I am not, but not the version you have in mind.”

“Santa is real?” Emma repeats again and even Henry laughs, probably with the way she looks. “Shut up, kid. Santa is real.”

“St. Nicholas was a Bishop who was secretly leaving gifts in the shoes of the people that waited for him.” Regina explains and now both Henry and she are listening silently. “Santa Claus is a modern version of Sinterklaas, which, in turn is based on the life of St. Nickolas.”

“Wow.” Emma says before taking a fry and chewing slowly. Sometimes it unnerves her to be with Regina. The other woman prefers books to TV and even though Emma is street smart and far from an idiot, she never did good at school and, sometimes, she wishes she would have paid more attention during class. 

Luckily for her, Henry seems to pick up this habit from Regina, practically inhaling one or two books every week. They were glad that Belle agreed to let him work part time at the library or else they would bankrupt by now. Or not, she’s not sure. After Neverland Regina decided to stay home with Henry and while Belle did a wonderful job as the mayor, she loved her job as a librarian more and gave up the title soon after they were back.

Almost three years later and Regina was still without a job and didn’t seem to be in need for one. Emma paid half the bills and with Neal in town Henry’s expenses were down to a third, but still most months she had to count to the last penny. Regina didn’t seem to have this problem; Henry had a new wardrobe every few months and even though Emma knew that the kid was growing, Regina could go with less expensive clothes. 

“I didn’t know you were religious,” she swallows the last of her bite with coffee. “I mean, yeah, the Blue Fairy is a nun or was, I think, but I never paged you for the religious type.”

“And you were right. I’m not.” 

Okay, _that_ she expected. Regina’s not from this world (technically nor is she) and she’s not sure if in a land of magic a God is needed. Regina (and to an extent Emma herself) can create everything they need with magic and in Emma’s books that makes them Gods. Or demi-Gods. 

Or something.

“But you celebrate Christmas.”

“I like the lights.”

“And I the gifts!” Says Henry and he doesn’t seem the bit sad that Santa is not real.

“Right. Okay. I guess.” She starts to chew through her fries without much enthusiasm.

She’s trying to understand how a kid full with hope like Henry, doesn’t believe…Oh, yeah. He believed in her. He believed in the curse (and he was right) and had faith that the Savior was going to come and break the curse, and she doesn’t know why Henry not believing in God makes her feel sad. It’s not as if she’s the biggest believer out there. You lose faith pretty fast when you go from one foster house to another. 

Emma wasn’t raised Catholic, but few of the families she stayed with went to church every Sunday and she remembers that she used to feel…nice? Safe? No, _safer_. She was safer inside the church than outside and maybe that’s the reason behind her sudden sadness. Henry though, he doesn’t need the church to feel safe; he knows that he’s safe. Knew it in Neverland, he knew that they were coming for him. 

“Tell me, dear, the long face is because I told you that Santa is not real? Aren’t you a little old for that?” 

“I just…” She’s not sure why it bothers her so much; everyone needs to believe in something, right? “Do you pray? When you’re in a bad situation, do you pray?”

Regina looks at Henry and then shakes her head. “No.”

“Never? Not when you were little? Not even in your world? With fairies and…” She stops because her next words can cause a reaction from the other woman. “Never ever?”

“Why is it so important for you to know if I was praying?”

 _Because your eyes have such sadness in them right now and I can’t stand it._ “I don’t know. Just one more piece of the puzzle I guess.”

She watches as Regina lowers her gaze until she’s staring at the empty plate in front of her lost in thoughts. 

“What’s the point in praying when there’s no one to help you?”

Emma opens her mouth to say something, but what can she say? Regina’s world is a place where fairy Godmothers are real yet not everyone had one. How was it decided who was going to have one and who was deciding no one knows. Some people had help and some didn’t and she is going to bring that up to Snow next time she sees her.

“Maybe no one helped you because you were evil,” she hears Henry say from the other side of the table and her eyes go wide.

“Kid!”

“What?” He asks all innocent, but there’s this glow in his eyes, a tell tale sight that he’s joking and he should know by now that she can take the teasing, but Regina can’t.

And of course Regina’s face fall and Emma can practically hear the gears working overdrive (and in the wrong way) in her head. “Is that so?”  
“Well duh!” Henry continues laughing and she gives him a death glare in an attempt to make him finally stop when Regina disappears in a cloud of purple smoke.

“Nice one, kid!”

“It was a joke!” Henry almost screams and his voice rings in her ears the wrong way; not a child anymore, but not an adult yet.

“Henry-“

“It was just a joke. I didn’t mean it.” He takes his cell phone out, speed dialing Regina’s number and he looks close to tears. “She’s not picking up.” 

Emma makes sure that no one is coming from the other direction when she turns into their street. Of course she’s not picking it up, why would she pick it up and make Emma’s life a little bit easier? 

“It was only a joke.” Henry says again, voice cracking a little at the end.

Emma says nothing.

 

“Where are you?” It’s the first she asks when Regina picks up her phone two hours later.

“I wanted to drive.” 

“He’s just a kid, Regina. He’s our son, but he can be a douche bag. He didn’t think.”

“He rarely does.”

Emma bites her lip, watching Henry sulking in the living room; the kid hasn’t move from his spot since they came home. “He’s upset.”

“Well, dear, that makes two of us.”

“Three.” She runs a hand through her hair, needing to do something for the tension. “Where are you?”

“Outside Brunswick.”

“Long drive.”

“Indeed.”

Silence.

“Okay, listen, since you’re this close to Portland, how about you go pick the new radio equipment for the station and I and the kid will cook dinner for you? Something with eggplants.” Henry hates eggplants – not that she’s thrilled about eating them-but he feels guilty enough to eat them tonight without a second word.

She’s glad to hear Regina laugh from the other side of the line. “And I’m the evil one.”

 

“Where is she?” Henry asks from the millionth time.

Emma looks at her clock, concern since the last time she spoke with Regina it was early morning, but for Henry’s shake tries not to show it. “Told you, Portland. Probably stuck in traffic.”

“Yeah,” he looks outside the window and frowns. “It’s getting dark outside.”

_Where are you? We are going to have dinner without you. Um…call me, okay? I-I’m getting worried._

_Hey, um, where are you?_

_Hey, mom. It’s Henry. You’re not still angry with me, are you? Because I didn’t mean it! It was a joke, that’s all. A bad joke. A really bad joke! And I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! Please come home._

_Why you’re not picking your phone? Pick it up, damn it!_

 

“Yeah?” 

Snow’s voice is thick with sleep and for a moment Emma thinks of hanging up. “Mom? I need you.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I was glad.” He takes his gaze from the road, finds her eyes for a couple seconds before looking straight ahead, to the open road, again. “Your mother knew. Snow knew from the start. You called to tell us that Regina didn’t return home and you couldn’t reach her and your mother knew that something was wrong.”

“Are you holding up?” 

Emma rests her head to the passenger’s window, looking outside without really seeing anything. She takes a sip from her coffee, their first and last stop before leaving Storybrooke, Henry and Snow behind, and she makes a mental note to thanks Ruby later because the coffee is spiced just the right way.

David’s driving; she was in no condition to drive. After calming Henry down, after explaining to him why he shouldn’t come with her, she called Snow and watched her son fix coffee for both of them. She’s glad that it’s David and not Snow or Henry with her. She’s out of her mind to try to take care of a son who is in even worst state than she is and Henry won’t try his shit with Snow at the house.

“For now,” she answers and turns her head in time to see her father smile. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“ _Dad_. What?”

David makes a chuckling sound with his tongue and Emma knows him enough by now to give him the time he needs to get it out. “I really thought she had left you. Regina.” He adds as if she didn’t know or couldn’t guess who he was talking about. “I thought she had left you and Henry, and I was happy, Emma.”

“David-“

“I was glad.” He takes his gaze from the road, finds her eyes for a couple seconds before looking straight ahead, to the open road, again. “Your mother knew. Snow knew from the start. You called to tell us that Regina didn’t return home and you couldn’t reach her and your mother knew that something was wrong.”

Emma plays with the paper cup, drawing lines with her nail, trying to find something to say but can’t, so she draws something that can pass as a heart. “She wouldn’t leave him. Me? Yeah, maybe, but Henry?” She shakes her head. “She would never leave Henry. Not even with a good reason.”

“Your mother said the exact same thing.” He smiles at her, looks to the rear mirror if a car is behind then and changes lanes to Portland. 

David, for a fairy tale character, is a decent driver. He keeps them a little over the speed limit, not fast enough to draw attention, but fast enough to keep her from complaining. They don’t talk much and she’s grateful for that. He stops for gas and disappears for a moment before getting back in carrying a bag with two egg McMuffins, two bottles of water and a latte for him.

To her questioning look he answers with a soft smile and a, “They don’t sell the kind of coffee you drink.”

She offers to drive, but her nerves are all over the place and she taps her fingers to the sound of an imaginary rock song until she can’t take it anymore. “She was there the whole time. “

She feels her dad’s hand on her knee, giving her a squeeze, and even though she’s not good with family stuff, she’s really glad David is with her; he offers the kind of comfort she needs. Snow is good with bows and arrows, but she has yet to learn to give her space. David doesn’t talk much and the hand on her knee is all she can stand right now. Anything more and she will burst in tears.

Because Regina has been fighting for her life, all alone, without her family to support her, for over a year and Emma wasn’t there. A sob escapes her with that thought, the thought of Regina lying on a bed with tubes going in and out of her body, slowly opening her eyes only to see an empty chair and unfamiliar faces. Another sob threatens to escape and she covers her mouth with both hands.

“Emma,” David says and she shakes her head, takes off her seatbelt, feeling the car slowing down but not stopping, and she reaches in the back seat, desperately searching for a bottle of water. She turns to her seat, holding the plastic bottle as if it’s the only thing keeping her sane, and her fingers are shaking when she tries to take the cap off. 

She’s aware that David keeps giving her side looks, but at the moment she doesn’t care. All she cares about is opening the damn bottle and taking a sip and then maybe, maybe, she can think again. She finally opens it and the water feels so good on her dry throat. 

“Better?”

“She couldn’t even remember her name.” 

And she hasn’t been there for her.

________________________________________

Ten miles outside Portland they change seats. 

Emma was raised in this world, she knows this world, feels safe in it, but David looks uncomfortable with the tall buildings. She can’t help but smirk; New York would be a real treat for Prince Charming. Emma follows the main road while David squirms in his seat. There is too much noise and too many people for his taste. Deep down, her father is still a farm boy.

“Where are all those people going?” He asks here and she shrugs. Never paid too much attention, but then again, not paying attention is what kept her safe when she was sixteen and living alone on the streets.

“I never thought about it, dad,” she answers honesty and chuckles when she sees the look on his face; opened mouth and eyes wide as saucers. 

She turns on Congress Street and waits patiently for the traffic lights to go green. “Come on,” she whispers under her breath, again and again as she waits and it’s the waiting that is killing her. She’s so close now, so close, she can see the building and yet it feels as if she’s miles away. 

“You know where we need to go?” 

She rubs her nose. “Uh, yeah. We have to find the maine building and go to Medical Records.” 

“Okay. Do you know where-“

“Level 1, dad. Yeah, um.” She has no clue whatsoever. Boston was the closest she had ever been to Maine before Henry walked into her apartment and changed her life completely and forever. “We’ll ask someone if we get lost.”

 

He gets lost.

David gets lost.

They are trying to find the Medical Records station, but it’s a little difficult to do when Charming looks at everything and everyone with wide eyes. The hospital is bigger than the biggest castle he had ever seen and even if castles were usually surround by a town, they never had so many people living there as the MMC. Emma, in her frantic search of someone who can tell her where Regina is, turns left to a door without telling David.

It’s five minutes later, when she has found what she was looking for, then realizes that somewhere along the way she has lost Charming. She takes her phone out, surprised to see that she has two missing calls from her dad and, excusing herself, she finds a quiet corner to call him back.

“I’m lost,” he answers and he sounds so much like a little child, so much like the little child she was and had to move from one home to another without much warning, that Emma finds herself tearing up again. 

“I found the place,” her voice heavy with emotion and all she wants to do is find David, find Regina and get the hell out of this place. “Stay where you are, dad. I’m coming to get you.”

________________________________________

“They are here for Jane Doe at Room 408.”

The nurse, a black man about five inches taller than David says, and Emma has to bite the inside of her cheeks to keep from screaming. The woman, middle fifties with too dark of hair and makeup for her age looks up from her computer at her and David and Emma has no problem knowing what she’s thinking. It’s written all over her face; _took you long enough_.

“She’s at the pool with Stevens,” the woman, looking at a file, says more to the nurse than to Emma and types something to the computer.

“Regina,” Emma says, her whole body shaking with excitement and guilt. “Her name is Regina Mills.”

The woman says nothing, more typing and when Emma is this close to lose it, the woman looks at them and says, “Dr. Xavier is with another patient. You can sit there,” she points to a small area on their left. “And I’ll call you when he’s free to see you.”

“Thank you,” David puts a hand to her shoulder, ready to guide her to the small sofa, but Emma doesn’t move.

“Can I see her?”

“See who? Jane? She’s at-“

“Regina. Her name is Regina.”

Emma’s lips are a thin line and she must rub the other woman the wrong way because there is more typing. “I’ll tell you when you can see Dr. Xavier.”

________________________________________

Dr. Xavier is younger than Emma expected and has the energy of a teenager. He walks fast, passing patients and doctors on his way and talks even faster and she has trouble keeping up with him. David, of course, just stays close and says nothing. This place is already confusing enough, but he frowns when he hears that for a few days it was touch and go. 

He explains everything from the moment the ambulance brought Jane –Regina- to the hospital to the critical first twenty four hours and then, when the edema of her brain didn’t improve overnight, to the experimental surgery because no one thought she could make it without a miracle, the injury was that bad.

But, against all odds, she did make it, alive but not out of the woods yet, in a coma for fourteen weeks and while the police did everything to find her identity and inform her family, the nurses and doctors did everything possible to save her life.

Emma hears all that, takes all the information she can, because the doc made it very clean that while Regina is very much alive, she has a very long road ahead of her. Then more words that Emma doesn’t understand, words that sound more Greek than English and she feels her head spin until the doctor stops outside a door.

“Are you ready to see her?”

Emma reaches for David’s hand because _no, no, no, no_ , she’s not ready to see her. She thought she was, but she is not. 

“You want me to go first?” David offers and Emma shakes her head.

“I need a minute.”

David nods and takes Dr. Xavier to ask him a few more questions, giving Emma the space she needs and she stands there, staring at a door and feeling as if she’s facing a dragon for the first time again. The only difference is that back then she had a sword to defend herself and now she has nothing. 

She opens the door and she has nothing to hide behind. 

She opens the door and her life as she knows it is over.

Gone.

And she can’t take it back.


	3. chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> God, even Regina’s voice sounds different. Deep as always, but not as strong and when she looks at her with eyes that look nothing like Regina’s eyes, Emma can’t help a sob escape her lips; this woman is not her Regina.

The woman in the bed doesn’t look a thing like Regina.

Emma can see that even from her spot at the door. The room is semi dark, the curtains keeping the sun out; the doctor had said something about Regina and photosensitivity, she thinks, but all Emma can think of are sunny, lazy, Sunday mornings on the back patio. The way the sun fell on Regina’s hair, soft, dark locks and secret smiles behind a book that Emma could see if she turned her head just the right way…

Regina has a buzz cut now that does little to hide the ugly looking scar on the right side of her scalp. A small, painful looking hole, the only indication that, at one point, a tube was all that kept her alive. 

Taking a step inside, Emma sees how pale Regina looks. She doesn’t have the ‘I spent most of my time indoors ‘cause it’s winter’ color, what she has is the pale color of someone who is sick and not quite well yet. Even during the worst winters (and they had a few since Neverland) Regina never looked as pale as she looks now lying on her side in the hospital bed. 

The clothes she’s wearing, an oversize grey sweater hood and black sweat pants that at least look her size. In all the years Emma has known the other woman and no matter how much Emma tried, Regina refused to wear sweat pants and now, here she is, looking odd but comfortable in them and in that moment Emma realizes that everything she knows, everything she fought for, is gone, perhaps for forever.

But if she stays here, if she stays at the door she won’t have to see her life change once more. She’s not ready for another change, not in the least. For so many years now it’s one change after another and she’s tired of running around trying to fix everything. She needs time. She needs some time to accept the facts, but she knows she doesn’t have any. David is outside waiting for her and she has a son back home that needs both of his moms, but Emma needs time.

Why she can never have time?

“Hey.”

God, even Regina’s voice sounds different. Deep as always, but not as strong and when she looks at her with eyes that look nothing like Regina’s eyes, Emma can’t help a sob escape her lips; this woman is not her Regina.

“Hey,” she answers and her legs don’t obey her brain. Her brain might scream walk, but her heart yells leave. “Um…” She stops not knowing what to say. What can she say? ‘Sorry, Regina. Some idiot wrote the last two digits of your social number wrong and it took them a year to figure it out?’ Somehow it doesn’t ring right to her.

But what Regina says next sends chills down Emma’s spine.

“I know you, right?” 

Emma barely holds back a sob and forces a smile to her lips that is short lived. She licks her lips and it’s getting harder and harder not to cry. Not to crawl in a corner and cry her heart out until Ashton Kutcher gets out of his hiding spot, informing her that Punk’d is back on and she’s the first victim.

Only she’s not famous or rich and Regina’s not faking it. Emma can see that in the way Regina’s eyes look at her, like Emma is a long lost cousin that Regina should remember her name but doesn’t. Regina’s gaze is not clean, not sharp, and when Emma finally covers the last steps to the bed, she can see that one eye is darker than the other.  
She tries to remember what the doctor has said, but she was too worried about Regina to pay attention and now she finds herself wishing she had.

“Yeah,” she nods, forcing another smile. “I’m, um, Emma.”

Regina frowns with that and Emma worries that she did something wrong, that she shouldn’t tell Regina her name, let the other woman find it out herself, when Regina speaks again.

“Emma,” she says, the name coming out as ‘Em-Ma’ and she says it again and then a third time, pretty obvious that while the name reminds her something, she can’t exactly tells what. “Emma.” This time it comes out as it should, clean and strong and sounding a little more like the Regina she knows. “ _My_ Emma?”

Emma nods again not trusting her voice and she’s glad that the only chair in the room is at the side of the bed next to her because her knees won’t hold her any longer. 

“I’m your Emma, yeah.” She feels weird hearing Regina refer to her as ‘her’ Emma since Regina never liked nicknames or labels of any kind. Unless it was Henry; the kid could get away with murder. “You remember me?”

“Bird.”

Bird? _Oh_! It takes her a moment or two to realize what Regina means and laughs once she does. “Swan. Emma Swan. My name. What else do you remember?” She encourages Regina only to take a negative answer. 

“I don’t know.”

“Okay,” she rubs her forehead with the palm; she really doesn’t know how to approach this Regina without scarring her or confusing her more. This is definitely not what she expected when she got the call. Emma expected to see an angry, brooding Queen, one that she could soften up with hugs, kisses and tears. “You want me to tell you a few things?”

“Yeah.”

So much like Henry and so unlike Regina.

“Okay. Um, we have a son.” Emma gives Regina time to think and the brunette doesn’t disappoint her.

This time Regina drags the ‘n’. “Henry.”

“God, Regina he missed you so much! You should have seen him this morning when we found out you weren’t dead, he wanted to come with me, but I didn’t know what to expect and the nurse said very little on the phone, and, God, Regina, I don’t know what to do with him anymore. He’s angry, he’s always angry and he blames himself for what happened to you.” 

Emma waits for Regina to say something, but the other woman stares at her.

She just stares at her and Emma’s not so sure that Regina sees her.

“R-Regina?”

[x][x][x]

“Give me that!”

Henry grabs the beer bottle from Thomas’s hand and downs half of it fast. Emma told him that she was going to call once she was in Portland, but that was hours ago and still not a phone call. Not even a text! If he hadn’t used all his free time the past weekend he would call her himself, but the last bill was so high she had taken his phone away for two weeks.

“Jerk!” Thomas, still sitting down on the grass, stretches his leg tripping Henry, laughing when a good amount of beer falls on Henry’s clothes.

“What’s your problem, man?” Henry holds the bottle so tight his knuckles turn white.

“That’s my beer you’re drinking.”

Thomas is two years older than Henry and despite Henry being two inches taller than him, Thomas has a good fifty pounds on Henry. He might be angry with Emma, but Henry’s not stupid; he knows he can’t take down the other boy so he takes one last sip from the bottle before giving it back to its rightful owner.

“My mom’s alive.” He offers as an explanation for his behavior.

“The Evil Queen?”

“Don’t call her that!”

Thomas grins at him. “Make me.” 

Henry shakes his head. He knows that Thomas is just messing with him, but sometimes he wishes he was strong enough to wipe the smile off of Thomas’s face. It’s his fault he came here, but all the others were at school and Ava’s dad, like Emma, had taken away her cell phone right when Henry needed her the most.

His mom is alive. 

His mom is alive and he wants to scream and kick something and run and jump and just see her with his own eyes to make sure that she’s alive. What if she’s not though? What if it’s another mistake like that time that Emma and he went all the way to Houston just to comeback empty handed. Maybe that’s why Emma hasn’t called him yet. Maybe the hospital was wrong and she doesn’t know how to tell him.

He takes his cell phone out of his back pocket and searches again and again for a text or a missing call. It won’t be the first time he’s missed a call but no. No texts and no missing calls, and he feels like crying. 

“Here.”

He puts his cell in his pocket –at the front this time- and takes the beer Thomas is offering with a small smile. “Thanks.”

“So your mom’s alive, huh?” 

“Yeah,” he nods and watches as Thomas takes a sip from his bottle before doing the same.

“I wish mine was too.”

All Henry knows is that Thomas’s dad is a blacksmith and that his mom died when Thomas was nine from the winter or the war between the Kingdoms, Henry’s not so sure. He never asked and Thomas never said. But one thing Henry knows is that Thomas likes it here and his father doesn’t have to forge swords for the war anymore, worrying that his son is of age. 

“Emma went to see her.” He says after a while, pealing the label off the bottle. 

“Cool.”

“Hey, Thomas?”

“Yeah?”

“You think she would want to see me?”

“Why wouldn’t she? She’s your mom.”

Henry nods. Everyone keeps saying that, Emma, Snow, Neal, and they are family, they’re suppose to make him feel better. But all Henry remembers is the way his mother looked at him before she disappeared from the face of earth; eyes red with tears and broken from the betrayal and all thanks to him and his stupid mouth.

“Because this is all my fault.”

[x][x][x]

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

David is glad to hear his wife’s voice. That’s definitely one thing he doesn’t miss from his life in the Enchanted Forest. Snow and he had the tendency to lose each other or to spend days away and he loves this little device that helps him hear his wife’s voice anytime he wants. If the battery on his phone wasn’t already down to half he would video call her.

“Did you find her? David? Did you found Regina?”

He smiles and, Gods, he loves his wife. After everything she’s been through, after everything Regina put her through, Snow can’t hide the worry and excitement from her voice.

“We did, yeah. Emma’s with her. She, um…”

“She _what_?”

He’s just a shepherd turned into Prince. Even as David Nolan he was nothing much; college drop out that loved animals and worked in the local shelter. He’s not ashamed to admit that Snow is the brains and he’s the muscles. David, for as long as he remembers, never wanted to be a Prince or a soldier or a hero. No, all David wanted was to live a peaceful life at his farm with his wife and a couple of kids.

He never wished on the Blue Star for more than what he had, but fate had other plans for him.

“David? She _what_?”

“I don’t know, Mary Margaret.” He’s not fond of the name and Mary Margaret is a different woman than his Snow, but he has to make sure not to blow their cover. Regina can rant all she wants about Evil Queens and no one will pay attention thanks to her head trauma, but a grown up man calling his wife Snow?

That will draw attention to him.

The wrong kind of attention.

“The doctor said so many things I barely remember half of them.”

“Okay,” he hears her take a breath and he knows her well enough to know that she’s thinking, connecting the dots. “How bad?”

“Bad enough. He talked about brain damage and physiotherapy, speech therapy, some other kind of therapy I don’t even know what it means.”

“But she’s alive, right?” 

He nods before mumbling a “Yes” under his breath. 

“David, what am I suppose to tell Henry?”


	4. chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He knows they are going to stay in Portland for a while, but he can’t bring himself to empty the boxes. If he does it, then it means that this is real and he likes to pretend that it’s a nightmare he’s going to wake up from any minute now for as long as he can.

“What’s going on?” David asks Emma, but she shakes her head and looks away from the bed, biting her lips, and David knows her well enough by now to know not to push.

His phone call to his wife took him away for less than five minutes, and while he knows, firsthand, that five minutes were more than enough for the Evil Queen of his land to create havoc in their lives, one look at his daughter's eyes lets him know that's not the case this time. This time the problem is not Regina, not in her typical Regina way, and not something that can be solved with a spell or a sword or even an unexpected alliance, and he feels lost.

Once again his daughter needs him and he can't help her.

And, like before, this is all Regina's fault, only it isn't.

“She had a seizure,” Emma whispers, and he looks to the other side of the room where a nurse and a doctor are checking files and machines. “I mean, I think she had a seizure. I don’t know. She was just…she was staring at me, but not really seeing me, you know? So I called for a doctor and he’s been with her for a few minutes.” 

“It is…” he stops. He was a farmer and then a Prince in a land so different than this one. He doesn’t know much about brain injury, but he knows that people that suffered from one in his land were mocked by the kids and considered a burden to their families. He licks his lips; how many had he mocked as a child? Children are cruel and he wasn’t much different. “It is serious? What did the doctor say?”

“Not much, but the nurse said it’s nothing to worry about.”

“And that’s not good why?” He asks seeing the worry in Emma’s eyes.

“Because it means she’s been having them quite some time now.”

David says nothing. Emma is clearly upset and all he can do is put a hand around her shoulders, keeping her close to him. “Let’s get a cup of coffee, okay?”

Worrying about his daughter, he’s good at. Worrying for both his daughter and Regina, he’s not so good at. Regina, in a way, is larger than life and he never had to worry about her life before. Her plans and evil ways, yes, but worrying about her well-being is more Snow’s thing. He’s a simple man and all he wants is to see his wife and daughter happy, and if Regina makes Emma happy he doesn’t have to like it to accept it.

Emma doesn’t move though and David can only guess what’s going on inside her head. He knows she feels guilty about Regina’s disappearing and, unfortunately, Henry has a lot to do with this. Emma, well, she’s not much of a talker when she doesn’t want to talk, but the last year was hard on her. 

This time it wasn’t a curse that took his mother away, and Henry is lashing out at everyone, but especially at Emma. No longer hiding behind lies, Regina and Henry had formed a very strong bond before the… “accident,” and Emma’s failure to find the former Queen took a toll on their relationship. 

Sometimes David wonders if some of Henry’s attitude comes from when Emma wanted to take him away without telling him or Regina first. 

“Come on,” he says again, gently squeezing Emma’s shoulder. “Let them do their job.”

 

Three Months Later

 

Henry wakes with enough time to spare until he has to get up. He turns off his alarm, rubs the sleep from his eyes, and turns on his side so he’s facing away from the door in case Emma comes to wake him up.

Not that she comes, not anymore.

Emma is busy with breakfast and keeping on schedule, and while she’s doing her best, they all know that that was his mom’s territory. Schedules and meetings and his dentist appointment, and now that they are running to keep up, only now they understand the kind of hard, but silent, work, Regina did.

He wonders if she’ll ever be like before. 

He sighs and closes his eyes. Soon he’s back to the hospital room, months after she was “lost,” days after he was told she was alive, hours in which his hands were shaking with excitement and guilt. More excitement than guilt. More guilt than excitement. He even dyed his hair to his natural color- or at least he tried.

Grams was kind with him in a way Emma hadn’t been in a very long time, helping him pick the right color and dying his hair in their living room, while David and Emma were off to bring his mom back home -only they didn’t. And while he’s the first to admit that he deserved it, he can’t help but feel as if Emma let him down. But if he really wants to be honest with himself, the real reason for feeling that is because he feels like he has let down his mom, Regina, many times in the past.

Now he knows that his mom had an accident. Emma didn’t tell him any details except that his mom was hurt, but a small part of him (okay, a big part of him) feels that his mother had had enough of him. Emma was right; she can take his teasing, but Regina did too many wrongs in her life to be able to tell the difference between teasing and accusing. 

Not when it comes to him.

Because she thinks she hurt him in the same way her mother hurt her.

Only she didn’t.

And he can’t tell her because he’s back at the hospital, with Emma and Grams by his side, and he’s smiling, big and bright and so full of love, and he waits for his mom to open her eyes and see him and smile the smile she only has for him, and then she opens her eyes and he stops breathing for a few moments. 

One brown, one black and weird looking. Not like his mother’s eyes before Emma broke the curse and changed his world for the first time. Not like his mother’s eyes when she was ready to die to make sure he could live. And definitely not like her eyes, dark and full of tears, when she was saying goodbye to him.

Her eyes weren’t cold or dark with motive, but Henry felt cold water run down his spine. He looks at Emma, needing an explanation, needing this whole thing to be as simple as True Love’s Kiss, but Emma doesn’t look at him. She’s biting her lip and can’t, won’t, look at him, and Henry knows. He knows that whatever he wanted to tell to his mom, it will have to wait. 

Maybe forever.

He opens his eyes; the memory of his first visit to the hospital leaves him aching for something he can’t have. Instead he stares at the wall of his new bedroom as if it holds the solution to his problems, and then he’s out of his bed, hair fuzzy from sleep, but feeling tired already. In one week he’s going to start school in Portland and this time he doesn’t have the benefit of forgetting. 

The floor is cold under his feet, but the room is warm. Emma is doing her best to balance rent, his new school and his mom’s hospital bills, and sometimes she thinks that if she waits until the last possible minute to turn on the heat it will save them a few dollars. She used to do the same when they were living in New York when they obviously didn’t have to, but old habits die hard.

Emma had told him once he didn’t know how bad things could be in foster care, but he was too young to pay attention to someone else’s pain. His mother was the Evil Queen of the fairytales and no one had it worse than him. Henry searches for a photograph of them, maybe when he was seven or eight, happy and knowing nothing about his adoption, safe in his mom’s hug, and smiles when he sees it.

Most of his things are back at home waiting for him. His clothes are still in the boxes Emma brought for him. Every day Emma tells him to put his clothes in the closet and every day he picks what he needs from one box and uses a chair for a closet. His laptop and a dozen books he can’t live without are the only items of his stuff piled next to his bed.

He knows they are going to stay in Portland for a while, but he can’t bring himself to empty the boxes. If he does it, then it means that this is real and he likes to pretend that it’s a nightmare he’s going to wake up from any minute now for as long as he can.

Because this? This is entirely his fault. 

There’s a knock at his door and then a soft, “Henry?”

“I’m awake,” he says, but doesn’t move.

He looks around the empty walls. At least they are a nice light shade of blue. It wasn’t supposed to be his room. His mom’s nurses told them that the color blue has a calming effect on Regina so Emma had David paint this room a light blue for her. Not one of them thought much of the two steps you have to climb to get into the room.

Who pays attention to two steps, right? Only they should have because his mom’s motor skills are the ones of a toddler, if said toddler was also drunk. No one had thought of that, not him, not Emma, not grandpa, until they drove his mom home from the hospital. And what a ride that was.

So Henry is sleeping in the master bedroom, which looks really big and empty with his single bed and workspace. He can fit all his stuff into the closet and still have room for him and both of his moms to step inside, sit and have a cup of coffee. 

He misses his room. His old room, not the one in New York. Although, sometimes he misses his life back in New York. It’s the anonymity he misses the most. At Storybrooke everyone knows his name, but in New York he was just another kid. He misses that. Not always, but there are nights when he’s watching a movie or a TV show, sees a familiar building or street and smiles with nostalgia. 

“Can I come in?” Emma asks behind the door.

He’s alone in the room, but he nods anyway. “Yeah, come in. I’m decent.”

He’s wearing boxers and a tee and Emma needs to stop playing with the heater; it’s not as if mom’s gift didn’t leave them with money. But he suspects that playing with money is Emma’s way of not thinking about stuff. He does the same, tries not to think about his mom’s condition, but he has a different way of avoiding it than Emma. 

“Are you warm enough?” It’s the first thing Emma asks when she steps into the room, and he raises an eyebrow because she’s wearing a hoodie. “She likes the cold, you know?” 

Yeah, he knows. His mom always liked Maine’s cold weather and even used to let a crack of her bedroom window open to get fresh air. When he was small, about five or six, and there was a storm outside, she would pick him up from his bed (he wasn’t afraid of the storms) and once in her bedroom, she would put him under the covers and tell him that he was in a shelter now, just the two of them, warm and safe from the world.

He smiles at the memory. “She likes to feel the weight of the blankets. She used to make a shelter for us to hide inside.”

“I remember it too,” Emma says after a few moments, and it’s so weird because his first memory is of his mom, but now that Emma said she remembers, he also remembers Emma doing the same. 

“Weird,” he admits, and Emma is Emma; she makes a grimace and dismisses the whole thing.

“Breakfast is almost ready. You go wake Regina and I’ll finish in the kitchen, okay?”

She doesn’t wait for an answer; she almost runs out of his room and not for the first time Henry realizes that this is as hard for Emma as it is for him. 

 

While his room is big and empty, his mom’s room is small and the queen-size bed takes most of the space. There is enough space for a small nightstand and that’s it. Emma doesn’t have a lot of clothes, and mom’s clothes are still in the closet and drawers exactly as she left them back at home before her disappearance. Neither Emma nor he had had the guts to pack her things away.

“Mom?” He calls from the door and when she doesn’t make a sound or move, he walks inside. Waking her up in the morning is his least favorite thing to do. She always looks tired, as if she hasn’t slept all night, and he always feels sorry for waking her up. The more she sleeps, the better the chance for her brain to heal, and if she didn’t have pool today they would let her enjoy her sleep.

But they have to follow her schedule at all costs if they want her to make a full recovery. Henry of course knows that his mom will never be the same as before. He looked online for her condition and even became a member at a forum with people with traumatic brain injury like his mom. It will be a miracle if she comes back to 80% and even then her injury will last for life.

“Mom? Time to wake up.”


	5. chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The look Regina gives her breaks her heart, full of trust and raw vulnerability, but she raises her hands above her head and Emma helps her with her tee. The sight is surreal, Regina never wore anything less than silk to bed and, as an inside joke, Henry and Emma buy only t-shirts for her. Regina either doesn’t mind or she doesn’t remember, but the things are comfortable as hell.

She is not eavesdropping. 

She is _not_.

She’s just making sure Henry and Regina are both okay.

Sometimes Regina wakes and has no recollection of where she is. Confused and scared, with eyes wide, searching for answers, and no matter how many times Emma or Henry explain things to her she will not understand. Emma will try to calm her down while Henry disappears to his room, still a boy in need of his mom, but with the pride of a young man. He pushes Emma away when she tries to talk to him. 

They have that in common, Henry and Regina, and it drives Emma crazy. Maybe because she knows how it feels, to have your whole world change again and again, never having a minute to catch your breath. Every time Henry goes to his room, eyes sad and lips a thin line, Emma loses him a piece at the time. Her son stole a credit card and took the bus to Boston when he was only ten years old and it scares Emma deeply. Because if at ten he did that, what is he capable of doing now that he’s older?

He already smokes and drinks; she did the same at his age. Angry at the whole world and feeling like no one would understand her, she ran off. She slept on the streets, stole to eat, and when strangers offered her beer or weed she took it. If she couldn’t belong to a family she would make a family of her own.

Only those kind of families never lasted long.

With the last sips of their beers, everyone went their own way. Neal was her first real relationship and the first time she felt like belonging. Older, street smart with a warm smile, he won her over despite not being her type. She was almost seventeen and he was too old, too worn out around the edges, but his eyes could still smile and that gave her hope.  
But Henry is not her. He once thought that living with the Evil Queen was the worst thing that could happen to him, but he realizes now that living without his mom is worse. The kid that stole a credit card to find her, the same kid that had loved her without knowing her, that kid can’t stand her now. 

Because he thinks this is his fault. And because she couldn’t save his mom. 

And what the fuck Savior is she if she can’t save the person they both love so much?

So every day Emma pretends she has to finish breakfast, giving him the time he needs with his mom. Sometimes he likes to stare while Regina sleeps and Emma’s chest aches because she does the same, but no matter how much they stare or wish, Regina is not going to wake up ordering them to leave the room and let her enjoy her day off. 

Sometimes he whispers words (Emma can’t hear from the doorway) to Regina’s ear and his eyes are always red when he runs out of the room, mumbling something Emma doesn’t get but understands too well at the same time. And every time this happens Emma loses any hope that things will turn out okay in the end for them. 

But today is a good day. Regina not only calls him by his name (sometimes she calls him Harry, others she stares at him until he has to say his name to her) and Emma can actually hear the smile on his voice. Good. They needed a good day badly. With moving to Portland from Storybrooke in such short time, Henry’s mood switches, and yeah, they really needed a good day. School is about to start and once it does she’ll have to work extra hard to keep Henry out of trouble.

Back at Storybrooke people turned a blind eye, but this is the real world and his moms can’t save him all the time. If Emma learned anything from her teen years it is that no one can save you if you don’t want to be saved and Henry, right now, he’s angry with himself and the world. The best she can do is to be there for him, but give him space at the same time. Not too much and not too little.

A delicate balance, one Emma hasn’t found yet, but for the sake of her family she hopes she will soon. 

That and hope that Regina will have a fast and full recovery.

“Breakfast’s ready,” she says in case Henry looks at the door and sees her. 

But he doesn’t look and she doesn’t move from her spot.

 

 

Breakfast takes them almost thirty minutes.

Henry wolfs down his eggs, but Regina is struggling to eat hers. She doesn’t have much of an appetite these days and despite Emma’s efforts to cook all her favorite foods, Regina is gaining weight at a slow pace, which pleases her doctors, but not Emma. Emma remembers a different Regina, one with boobs and ass, and long dark hair. 

The Regina sitting next to her is hollow cheekbones and skin and dull eyes. 

She looks a tiny bit better than the first time Emma saw her at the hospital, Emma can’t deny that, but one look and you can tell something’s wrong. Her skin has a healthier look – Emma made sure their apartment had an outdoor space no matter the rent. And to find an apartment close to the hospital and a good school for Henry, with two bedrooms and the outdoor space they wanted for Regina, took time and effort and a lot of money. And yes, apart from the master bedroom the other room is pretty small, but to be able to provide Regina with a small balcony so she could catch some sun and do her daily routines outside the hospital was worth it.

The first few days away from the hospital were hard for all three of them, but they were especially hard for Regina. She would wake two or three times in the middle of the night, disoriented and with no memory of where she was and why, and Emma had to explain to her where she was, again and again, showing a calmness she didn’t feel. It took Regina almost six weeks to sleep through the night without accidents. 

Waking up is still a problem though.

“You have to eat your eggs, Regina,” she orders with the same softness in her voice she remembers using with Henry, and when Regina struggles to bring the spoon to her mouth she doesn’t help her (Regina needs to learn how to do this herself), but smiles brightly when she does. “My cooking is not that bad now, is it?”

Chewing her eggs, Regina shakes her head and Emma feels as if she will never get used to this quiet, almost shy, Regina. The Regina she fell in love with was a force of nature; loud, powerful and passionate from the way she loved to the way she could hold a grudge. People like Regina loved with everything they had and that was something that scared Emma. 

It was also one of the reasons she fell in love with the other woman.

To be loved like that it was both a curse and a gift.

“Henry will be with you at the pool while I’ll have a talk with your doctor, okay?”

She watches as Henry gives her a ‘duh’ look before finishing his plate. Repeating things might be boring to him, but Regina looks at her and Emma can tell she doesn’t remember the conversation they had not ten minutes ago. 

“You won’t come?”

“I’ll be there. I just have to talk with your doctors,” Emma explains one more time, trying very hard not to show how difficult this is for her. “Henry will be there too.”

She keeps it as simple as she can. Simple and short sentences so Regina won’t have a hard time following the conversation. Regina nods again and to Emma’s delight she eats another spoonful of eggs. Huh. It seems that Henry was right and Regina likes her food a little spicy. She mouths a thank you to him next time he looks at her and when he smiles back at her it is all she needs to make it through the day.

 

 

She might have spoken too soon because after breakfast there’s shower time (Regina needs time to wake up before she’s able to function, something that Emma understands too well; she’s useless in the morning until she has her coffee) and Regina acts like a bratty four year old every time she has to take a shower.

Okay, bratty is too harsh, but Emma’s already on the edge and the day hasn’t started yet.

“No the head.”

“I know, Regina, I know.”

Shower time is also the only time there’s a sight of Regina before the attack. 

“No water in the head.”

“Regina,” Emma starts to say loudly, but softens up when she sees Regina jump from fear. Loud noises scare her and Emma wonders if it means that she is starting to remember things. She’ll have to inform the doctors about it, but for now she just wants to finish here as fast as they can because otherwise she’ll have to reschedule the appointment for another day and all this trouble will be for nothing. As softly as she can she says, “I’m not going to wash your hair, I promise.”

The look Regina gives her breaks her heart, full of trust and raw vulnerability, but she raises her arms above her head and Emma helps her with her tee. The sight is surreal, Regina never wore anything less than silk to bed and, as an inside joke, Henry and Emma buy only t-shirts for her. Regina either doesn’t mind or she doesn’t remember, but the things are comfortable as hell. 

It takes Emma more than five minutes to remove all the clothes from Regina while she struggles to keep the other woman from falling. Her balance is still off, so off that by the time Emma has Regina naked in front of her, her own t-shirt is stuck to her back and her hair is damp with sweat, and while they have a wheelchair to aid, the bathroom is not big enough to maneuver around.

Even if that wasn’t a problem, Regina hates the chair and refuses to use it, making her and Emma’s life more difficult. And while Emma has managed to talk her into using the chair when they are away from home for a long period of time, she can’t do the same when they are inside the house. Regina’s stubbornness comes back full force and every attempt by the blonde to convince her ends up with headaches for both of them.

She drops the last item in a pile under the sink (later, she’s going to pick up the clothes later) and frowns when she looks at Regina’s body.

“I’m thinking, Susan’s for lunch? Would you like that? Clams with tartar sauce?”

Not the healthiest of choices, but Regina needs to put some meat on her bones and Susan’s is actually the only fast food (if it counts as one) her stomach can handle. 

Regina makes a grimace as if she doesn’t approve, but Emma’s been with her enough for the last three months, give or take a week or two, to know that it could mean anything from ‘fuck no!’ to ‘fuck yeah!’. Then Regina nods, a little too eager, and Emma smiles with relief.

“No.” 

Emma frowns; she thought Regina liked the food there. And, okay, the old Regina wouldn’t be caught dead inside Susan’s, but this Regina ate a whole haddock burger and even few of Emma’s onion rings, surprising both Emma and Henry.

 _Huh_.

“Don’t feel like clams?” 

“No. No clams.”

Weird conversation to have, especially since one of them is naked, but it helps to take Regina’s mind away from the shower and so much so that she even tries herself to step inside the bathtub, but with no luck. She can’t lift her leg so high, not without help anyway, but Emma holds her tight from the elbow and lets her try a few times.

“Lobster then,” she continues their conversation as if Regina is not struggling with something as simple as lifting your leg a few feet up in the air. “Henry said their lobster roll wasn’t that good though.”

It’s a thin line between helping Regina do anything and letting her try until she either successes or, defeated, asks for help and Emma walks that line like a pro. Regina never had much patience, not when it didn’t involve Henry somehow, and their relationship was still new when Emma learned to read the signs and give Regina the space she needed. That's one thing she loves about Regina—they didn’t have the need to be glued 24/7 like her parents. It's one of the reasons of why she ended things with Killian.

Like Regina, Emma also needed time for herself away from her parents and even Henry. Killian loved her and she loved him too, but ultimately he couldn’t give her what she wanted. The way he loved and the way she loved were night and day, causing cracks in their relationship. She didn’t understand it at first, she was thirsty for someone to put her first and he did. For a few months it was all she ever wanted, but soon it became quite clear that they were two very different people who couldn’t find a middle ground.

With Regina that middle ground was Henry and it wasn’t love at first sight, but a rather tiresome friendship that slowly turned into something else. Something more meaningful than what she had with Killian. And when they kissed for the first time it wasn’t because she was in awe from something Regina did for her, but because Emma couldn’t spend another minute away from the other woman.

Thankfully, Regina felt the same way.

In the eight or so months Emma was with Killian, Regina became her mentor, best friend and the smile on her face, and when she moved to Regina’s it was to no one's surprise. Of course that didn’t mean that everyone was happy. Killian wasn’t, half the town wasn’t, and her dad wasn’t. Unlike her mother, David didn’t share the same blind faith Snow had for Regina and while supportive, he wasn’t exactly happy.

“No lobster,” Regina says and Emma can sense the irritation on her voice.

“Is this going to be a ‘No’ day? Because I wasn’t warned about that,” she jokes and is rewarded with something that sounds between a laugh and a groan. As gently as she can, she helps Regina to get in the tub and sit on the chair they have for her. She doesn’t say a thing when Regina’s nails leave marks on her skin—it happens every time Emma lifts Regina up to get her in the tub or out of the car, and every time Emma makes a mental note to cut Regina’s nails, but she never does.

 _Time’s up_.

“We have to do something about those nails of yours,” Emma murmurs. Regina’s nails have left half moon marks on her skin, but at least she didn’t draw blood. 

Regina stares at her for a moment, naked and so tiny she resembles nothing of the all powerful Evil Queen, before dropping her gaze down. 

The last thing Emma needs right now is for Regina to withdraw from her. Before she could disappear in to her office for an hour or two and then they would talk it out or solve any problems they had in bed, but now Emma is scared that if Regina gets lost in her head she’ll never come back to her. 

Stupid fear, she knows that. Regina is getting better every day, Emma can see her progress from the way she talks more to the way she understand things. And yeah, it is not the progress Emma hoped for (God knows she tried to get Regina back to Storybrooke where they have magic, but the doctors refused to let her go) but it is progress. Hell, six months ago Regina couldn’t communicate at all and now she _knows_ she doesn’t want clams for lunch! 

Most people take it for granted, making silly decisions like what to eat for lunch or what to wear, but for Regina, with her head trauma, it is an accomplishment.

“Hey, it’s okay. I’m fine, see?” Emma smiles and shows both hands to Regina. “It’s not as if you haven’t done worst things to my back.” 

Emma licks her lips as she remembers nights with Regina marking her back, her neck, her everything with nails, teeth and hungry kisses. She should had seen it coming, the marking, Regina’s need to make sure people knew that the Savior was hers and hers alone, from the way she was protective and territorial over Henry. But once Emma made sure she wasn’t going anywhere not now and not in the future, the marking stopped; Emma had years to wear turtlenecks to work.

Emma misses those first months with Regina. Not because they were, like most new lovers, fucking every chance they got, but because they were happy then. All of them! Happy and so beautifully blind in thinking that a curse was the worst thing that could happen to them when they should had been afraid of reality. 

They should have been afraid of cars and drugs and cancer, and cowardly people hitting unsuspicious women walking to their car with a crowbar on the head from behind!

She takes a breath and holds it, trying to calm herself and not worry Regina, but it’s too late. Regina looks at her, head tilt right, and yeah, the woman can’t tell right from left, but of course she would pick that something’s wrong!

“Emma?” 

“I’m fine, I am.” She lies and when she smiles her smile is as fake as her fake ID back in the days. “Everything’s fine, okay? I’m fine, you’re fine, Henry’s fine.”

But she’s not, they are not, and when Emma opens the water with shaking hands and water drops on Regina’s head, Regina stays silent.


	6. chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I needed you mom. I needed you and you weren’t there.”
> 
> A sob escapes from Emma and Snow can’t do anything more than to listen to her daughter crying over the phone. She did this and she’s the only one who can fix this. Hearing Emma cry acts like a wakeup call for Snow, but all she can do right now is soothe her daughter down with promises that she’s going to keep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That wasn't an easy chapter to write. 
> 
> Warning for ableism.

“Emma called,” David says, hoping for a reaction from Snow.

 

Ever since she drove Henry to Portland to see Regina, Snow is avoiding Emma, and she hardly talks about Regina. Every time Emma calls, Snow finds something to do and rarely has time for her daughter. While David knows his wife’s behavior has nothing to do with their daughter and everything to do with Regina, Emma is starting to get pissed off with Snow.

 

He tried to explain it to Emma, but his daughter had a difficult day and wanted someone to yell at and he happened to be willing to listen. She hung up on him and called him right away to apologize, thanking him for being a dad. David doesn't know much about being a dad, he never got the chance thanks to Regina, but he can't know that his daughter is suffering and do nothing to ease that pain.

 

 “She asked if we will go and give her a hand with Regina and Henry.”

 

“And what did you say to her?”

 

Snow is not even looking at him. It drives him mad. “I told her that we'll be there in a couple of days. I need to reschedule the shifts at the station and ask Kathryn or Leroy to take my place at the shelter.”

 

“I can do that,” she says, avoiding looking him in the eyes. “It’s for this Saturday, right? I can do that, no need to ask anyone.”

 

“Snow.” He puts his hands on his hips and feels rather stupid for doing so. Snow is his wife, not a child he’s about to lecture.

 

“I can’t, David, okay? I can’t.”

 

“She needs us, Snow.”

 

“Do you think I don’t know that?”

 

“Do you?” He urges, wanting her to talk to him. “’Cause it doesn’t seem like you do.”

 

She looks at him then, green eyes filled with fury and her lips a thin line, and for a moment he thinks that she will open up to him and tell him what’s going on inside her beautiful head. She's been withdrawn the last few weeks, lost in her thoughts in a way he hasn’t seen in years. In decades actually, and it bothers him.

 

It’s not as bad as it was with Cora, David doesn’t want to remember that period and what Snow did, so instead he chooses to focus on the good times before Regina’s disappearance. They were happy then, all of them, and even though he wouldn’t chose the Evil Queen for his daughter’s…partner, he has to admit that Regina was good for his daughter and loved his grandchild with or without her heart. And while Regina never said it (and David is sure that she will never do), he knows that she loves Snow and perhaps even him.

 

“Just talk to me, Snow,” he says, softly this time, and kneels in front of her. “I know how hard it must be for you, but you don’t have to keep it inside. Not to me, never to me, you know that.”

 

And Snow just breaks in front of him. She throws herself at him and he has barely time to open his arms and catch her when he feels her hot breath on his skin. He says nothing to comfort her. He knows he can’t, not with words anyway. He hugs her a little tighter to his body, letting her take as much comfort as she can.

 

It bothers him that Regina has so much power over his wife (and daughter, he can’t forget Emma) because he never met the Regina Snow loves so much. No, he only met the Evil Queen in all her fury. It’s hard for him to overlook all the things Regina did to them, to others, but he has seen the way she looks at Emma when she thinks no one is watching. He knows that Regina loves as strong and as deep as she hates.

 

He takes a deep breath. If this is so hard on Snow and Emma, he can only imagine how hard it must be for Henry. His grandson, the one who brought Emma to Storybrooke to save them all from the Evil Queen, who loves his mom more than anyone, even Emma. It wasn’t an easy ride and it took them a lot of hard work to rebuild their relationship and to reach the point they could finally put the past behind and focus on the future. The day Regina disappeared, a part of Henry disappeared as well.

 

Snow wasn’t there when Regina gave Henry up to him, but David remembers how sincere her voice was and how small she looked watching him take Henry away. If they have anything in common, it is giving up their children to give them a better chance. But they had sent Emma away to also give themselves a better chance, while Regina’s motives had nothing to do with her and everything to do with Henry.

 

Maybe that’s why they still don’t feel like a family with Emma, despite being through hell and back. A part of David believes that Emma will never forgive them for that. Some nights, when he’s alone at the station or lies awake next to his wife, he can’t help but think that Emma was right, that it would have been better to stay together under the curse than what they chose to do.

 

But he can’t change the past, and thinking about it only makes his heart hurt.

 

“She’s Regina, she looks like Regina, but she’s not Regina,” Snow breathes into his shoulder.

 

“She’s getting there,” David lies, as if Snow hadn’t been there when the doctors explained to them that they might never get Regina back.

 

But Snow continues as if he hasn’t just lied to her. “Even when she wanted me dead, even then I could look at her and see a glimpse of the old Regina, but that woman…I don’t recognize that woman, David. I don’t. And I caught myself wishing it’s some kind of a plot, that the hit brought the Evil Queen back and she’s plotting for my upcoming death-“

 

“Snow.” His voice is low, but there’s a hint of warning. And just to make himself clear, he lets go of her and looks into her eyes—he's not going to let anyone hurt her and Regina is not plotting anything.

 

“I know.” She seems to read his mind, and smiles briefly. “I just wish that-“ She sighs. “David, I know how to deal with a Regina that wants nothing more but to kill me, but with a Regina who doesn’t remember me?”

 

David runs a hand through his short hair. Snow is not wrong; he too would rather have to deal with the Evil Queen than with the woman they met in the hospital. But their daughter has been left alone to deal with Regina and Henry when she hasn’t even managed to cope with what had happened. One minute they were thinking that Regina had disappeared and was probably laying dead somewhere and the next they are talking about physical therapy and rehab.

 

He’s not proud of himself, but sometimes David thinks it would be for the best if they had found Regina’s body.

 

“I’m a bad person, aren’t I?” Snow makes a grimace and he wants to tell her than no, she’s a good person and he’s a terrible one, but he never gets the chance. “It should be about her and I’m making it about myself. How I can’t see Regina like that when she’s learning to walk and talk again. I’m a bad person and a horrible mother, but I can’t David. I simply can’t.”

 

“You are not a bad person,” David insists, but can see the doubt in his wife’s eyes.

 

“How can you say that?” She nearly screams. “Regina needs the support of her family and instead of being there, helping her, helping our daughter and Henry, I’m finding excuses not to talk with her on the phone!”

 

“Okay, you are a horrible person then,” David says then, and Snow’s eyes go big with surprise. “You are a horrible person, but you know what Snow? You can change that. There’s your chance. Call Emma, tell her that we will be there tomorrow night. Talk to Henry, ask how Regina is. But do it and do it now because tomorrow I’m driving to Portland with or without you and I'd rather have you with me, but I can’t and won’t force you to do anything you don’t want to do.”

 

Snow stands to stare at him, but when he offers his cell phone to her she takes it.

 

 

 

 

 

Emma sounds out of breath when she answers the phone.

 

“ _Hi, dad_.”

 

“Emma, hi, it’s…it’s me.”

 

There is a pause and Snow won’t blame Emma if she hangs up on her. After the little fight with David, she took a long walk all the way to the pier and back to Regina’s house before finding the courage to make the damn call. Right now, listening to Emma’s breath on the other side of the line, she’s not sure she made the right choice.

 

“Your dad said you called.”

 

“ _Which time? This one or the thousand other times before_?”

 

Emma is angry with her and she has every right to be, so Snow swallows her pride and tries again. “How are you? H-How’s Regina? Henry?”

 

“ _Oh, you care now_?”

 

“I always cared.”

 

“ _You sure have a funny way showing it_.”

 

 Snow wishes she could say more than the lame “I’m so sorry” that she manages to mumble.

 

“ _Yeah, that sorry changes everything_.”  

 

“Just-“

 

“ _I don’t want to hear it, mom, okay? Just tell me if dad’s coming up this weekend or not_.”

 

“Tomorrow actually. We are coming tomorrow.”

 

“ _You’re also coming_?”

 

“Yeah, I-“

 

“ _Don’t bother. I don’t want you here_.”

 

“Emma, please give me a chance to explain-“

 

“ _I know it’s hard on you, Mary Margaret, but did you take the time of the day to think how hard it must be for Henry? Or me? Hm? Did you_?”

 

Snow licks her lips and tastes salty tears. She shakes her head. “Every minute of every hour.”

 

“ _You left her, Snow. You left me_!”

 

“I know.”

 

“ _Do you know how much I needed your help_? _If not with Regina then with Henry at least_. _And you weren’t here, Snow_. _I needed you and you left_.”

 

“I’m sorry.” Over and over again until both women are crying and Snow chokes out a, “Let me be there for you now,” desperate.  

 

“ _If you come only to leave don’t come at all_.”

 

“I won’t. I promise. I won’t leave you or Henry or Regina.”

 

“ _I needed you mom. I needed you and you weren’t there_.”

 

A sob escapes from Emma and Snow can’t do anything more than to listen to her daughter crying over the phone. She did this and she’s the only one who can fix this. Hearing Emma cry acts like a wakeup call for Snow, but all she can do right now is soothe her daughter down with promises that she’s going to keep.

 

 

 

 

 

Henry looks at his watch for the third time in less than ten minutes.

 

He worries about Emma.

 

She took a call from Snow and left the small restaurant to search for a more private place, leaving him and Regina alone to eat their food. That was ten minutes ago and Henry can’t help but wonder if Emma is alright or something happened to her. His mom is chewing a piece of onion, oblivious to the state Emma was in when she left.

 

He knows that Emma is mad at grandma, truth is he is also mad at her, but he wouldn’t mind having her here. Emma is doing her best, but they both know that his mom was the one who took care of them and right now Emma looks like she needs someone to take care of her. His mom needs his help more than Emma does—or at least, that’s what he thinks.

 

At least Emma doesn’t need assistance to go to the bathroom.

 

He looks at his watch again before he looks at the door, hoping to see Emma walk in.

 

“Emma,” his mom says, and Henry has to fake a smile.

 

“She’s talking on the phone with grandma. She’ll be back.”

 

His mom frowns and Henry starts to explain. “I mean with Mary Margaret. You remember her, don’t you Mom? Short, dark hair, likes to dresses like she’s fifty. Married to David.”

 

“I know.”

 

She doesn’t, Henry can tell from the way she doesn’t react to their private joke about Snow and takes a sip of his soda to hide his disappointment. He thought it would be easy, but he couldn’t be more wrong. He really thought that once Emma found his mom they would drive her back home and everything would be like before.

 

“Eat your vegetables, Mom.”

 

He’s not allowed to drive yet and he has to convince his mom to eat her greens. He…he wasn’t ready for that. His mom was always the strong one and his book made her look larger than life and he really thought that about her. The Evil Queen would lose a battle, but she was always standing at the end.

 

Even in this world she could take a hit and continue as if nothing had happened. She absorbed a death curse because he asked her to, survived Greg and Tamara, beat Pan at his own game, and Henry had started to believe that nothing could bring her down. And when she started dating Emma, Henry was sure that nothing bad would happen to his family. Not when the Evil Queen and the Savior joined forces.

 

Shit, they had moved the damn moon together!

 

All it took was a crowbar to destroy the illusion.

 

For the first time in his life, Henry feels helpless. When he was younger, his thoughts would often turn to Emma for comfort. He knew that no matter how hard things were, his mom would come and save them all. But now? Now he realizes how wrong he was. Emma was meant to break his mom’s curse and she did. Everything else she achieved after that it was a group effort.

 

He smiles at his mom when he notices that her hands are shaking while picking a fried zucchini from her plate. It had been a long day and his mom is getting tired. Soon she will be too tired to do anything and Emma is still MIA.

 

Henry looks again at the door for any sight of his other mom.

 

If only Emma could travel back in time and stop him from making that terrible joke.

 

But if life has taught him anything the last year is that you don’t always get what you wish for.

 

He’s ready to get up and go search for Emma when he hears a loud noise, a fork hitting a plate with enough force to break it, from the other side of the table.

 

“Mom?” 


	7. 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s the first time Snow sees her after that day at the hospital and she doesn’t know what to do or what to feel. Her first instinct is to go there and hug Regina, something she wasn’t able to do for so long now and she misses it. Even when Emma was dating Regina, Snow and Regina’s relationship still had ups and downs. And while they had a lot of one on ones, hugging was out of the question. Regina allowed small touching, but it was pretty clear that it was all that could tolerate.

The last thing she expected when they left Storybrooke a good two hours ago was for her daughter to hug her as soon as she saw her, but here they are now, in the hallway, David carrying the bags behind her and Emma hugging her so tight Snow starts to feel the pressure to her ribs.

 

But she doesn’t back away and doesn’t push Emma away. Instead she lets her daughter take as much comfort as she can and, she’ll never dare say it out loud, enjoy Emma’s hug because they are far and few between. Snow knows that Emma is easier to open up to David than to her and sometimes she misses the months they spent as best friends. Not today though. Today her daughter needs her mother and a mother she will be.

 

“I’m sorry,” Emma, wiping tears away with the back of her hand, apologizes and Snow shakes her head.

 

“Why? It seems that hug was exactly what you needed,” she smiles while her knees feel ready to give up; Henry’s voice getting closer and louder. Fast, so Henry won’t listen, she whispers. “And so did I.”

 

Emma smiles, a small broken smile that makes Snow want to take her daughter in her arms again and never let her go, but at the same time it makes her feel uncomfortable, knowing that she put her own needs above everyone’s. “She’s not going to bite you, you know. She’s…” she stops and Snow feels a sharp pain in her heart watching her daughter look up in an attempt to hold back her tears. “She just woke up actually, we had a small incident earlier, Henry freaked out, of course he did, he shouldn’t see…”

 

“Emma,” Snow says because Emma is mumbling stuff she can’t understand.

 

“..So we came home and I put Regina to bed, it’s ridiculous how fast she gets tired, ten minutes of walking can leave her breathless and in need of a nap-“

 

“Emma!” David says her name again and this time it does the trick, she stops, right when Henry appears at the door.

 

“Granma! Granps! You’re here!”

 

Henry hugs first her and then David and it’s as if Emma snaps and sees her father standing there for the first time and shyly she gives him a quick hug, her attention elsewhere.  

 

“Regina? You’re okay?” Emma asks and, Snow observes, in heartbeats both her daughter and grandson’s bodies tense. “Regina?”

 

It’s almost unbelievable how they all, as if they were one person, don’t move or talk, until they hear the soft reply from inside the apartment.

 

“Let me help you with that,” Henry takes one bag from David and they finally step inside.

 

 

 

When Henry was fourteen and for about six months he was crazy about hockey. He made Regina buy him expensive ice skates and stick while Emma bought him a vintage tee from his favourite team, Montreal Canadians because he liked the red and the blue, despite being a Bruins fan herself. They had work out a schedule to drive him to practice and Emma joked with Regina that they were raising a jock, when Henry quit from the team without a warning. Much later they found out that Henry’s new found love for hockey was because he wanted to charm a girl, but he didn’t like the sport and was so bad the coach cheered with relief when Henry told him it’s his last day.

 

Regina is wearing that t-shirt now and it’s as big on her as it was on Henry when Emma bought it for him.

 

It’s the first time Snow sees her after that day at the hospital and she doesn’t know what to do or what to feel. Her first instinct is to go there and hug Regina, something she wasn’t able to do for so long now and she misses it. Even when Emma was dating Regina, Snow and Regina’s relationship still had ups and downs. And while they had a lot of one on ones, hugging was out of the question. Regina allowed small touching, but it was pretty clear that it was all that could tolerate.

 

There are days that Snow is…was, is jealous of Henry and Emma for being able to put their arms around Regina and give her a hug because it’s the one thing she wants, but can’t.

 

“Can I…can I hug her?” She asks all hope, but Emma shakes her head crushing Snow’s hope.

 

“Better not. She gets a little nervous around people she doesn’t kno-doesn’t remember and she had an incident earlier so you know.”

 

Snow doesn’t know, but nods anyway. It doesn’t escape the fact that Emma, twice now, said something about an “incident”, but looking at the woman sitting on the couch she can’t tell what exactly is wrong with her. Sure, she looks a bit groggy, but that could be normal if she just woke up. Still Snow can’t help but ask, “What kind of incident?”

 

“Later,” is all Emma says, walks to the couch and sits next to Regina, and Snow gets the message that it’s something Emma doesn’t want to talk with Henry on the room. Then she points at David and Snow. “Look Regina, Mary Margaret and David. They came all the way from Storybrooke just to see you.”

 

“I’m glad you came,” Henry whispers at her before he disappears with their bags to one of the rooms. “Since Granps and Granma are here, I’m getting online, okay?”

 

“Snow?” Her husband asks and she doesn’t know how he does it, how he says only her name, but means so much.

 

“I’m fine, David.”

 

“No one will blame you if you need some time.”

 

She shakes her head. “I had plenty of time. I’m fine.” But she’s still standing there watching from a safe distance.

 

David says nothing, but gives her a gentle kiss on the forehead for support.

 

“I’m ready,” and this time she is.

 

 

 

 

She smiles when she sits on the opposite side of Regina. The chair is a dark green color and had seen better days, but it’s all Emma could afford on such a short notice. She had only days to furnish the apartment and couldn’t be picky about the furniture. The chairs and the couch don’t match and the coffee table is far too short to be comfortable.

 

The couch her daughter and Regina are sitting is a creamy white and there’s a small hole on the inside of the left armrest and suddenly she realizes that most of the things in the apartment are either from IKEA or from a second hand store. A crazy thought cross her mind and she thinks Emma capable of doing it, perhaps a few pieces of the furniture came from a dumpster? She’ll ask Emma later. Or maybe she will not. She likes the chair she’s sitting.

 

“Hi,” she says softly and waits, but for what she doesn’t know.

 

Regina looks at her, then at David serving himself a cup of coffee, before resting her head to Emma’s shoulder.

 

“Waking up takes some time,” Emma informs Snow. “The meds she takes don’t help either.”

 

“I-“ Snow doesn’t know what to say. There are so many things she wants to ask she doesn’t know where to start. Finally she decides to state the obvious. “You look better since the last time I saw you, Regina.”

 

When Regina looks at her it’s nothing like she’s used to. Snow is used to death stares and snarky comments and even, although not as often as Snow would like, a smile. She sees nothing of those things in Regina’s eyes. She could always see Regina’s emotion in her eyes, emotion she didn’t want to see and things she never thought she’d see again, and right now the eyes that stare back at her are without any emotion.

 

“She’s getting better,” Emma answers for Regina and Snow feels relief that she doesn’t have to look at Regina’s eyes anymore.  “Slowly, but she’s making a lot of progress. “

 

“That’s great.”

 

“Yep,” Emma continues and Snow smiles again before asking.

 

“You said something about an “incident”, didn’t you?”

 

“Yeah,” Emma looks away and Snow follows her daughter’s gaze; Henry is lying on the bed with his laptop on and wearing headphones, door wide open in case something happens. When he looks at them, surprised to see them staring at him, Snow smiles once more. “She had a complex partial earlier.”

 

Snow has read books and went online to find out more about Regina’s condition, but she read about someone else’s life and someone else’s seizures. Hearing Emma talk about a seizure almost makes her want to take the car keys and drive all the way back to Storybrooke when Regina lifts her head and looks up at Emma, and Emma looks back at her with so much love that makes Snow finally feel that here is where she suppose to be.

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

“You have nothing to apologize for,” Emma’s voice is soft, but Snow can hear the emotion in her voice; Emma is almost to her breaking point and it’s all Snow’s fault. She was selfish, thinking about her own feelings and how she couldn’t cope seeing Regina like this. Right now she can’t stand watching Emma like this.

 

“I scared him.”

 

Henry. Of course. That explains why Henry was so glad to see them and how fast he ran to hide behind a computer screen. Like his moms, like both his moms, Henry likes to withdraw to himself. Snow has no doubt that if Regina was healthy and they were back at Storybrooke that door would be tight shut.

 

“Yes, you did.”

 

Snow didn’t expect Emma to be so forward with Regina, but perhaps that’s exactly what Regina needs. They don’t know how much Regina remembers from her past life, but she always had trouble trusting people, Snow knows that. Emma telling her the truth, as hard as it is, will help Regina trust her faster.

 

“He’s alright,” Emma takes Regina’s hand to hers and squeezes it softly. “He needs to know what to do next time you have a seizure.”

 

Regina looks down and Snow finally figures out why Regina’s behavior seems off. It’s not only Regina’s eyes that are blank, but her face is stripped from all emotions. Regina was always very expressive, using her voice and her body to express feelings, but now, watching her closely, her face shows no emotion.

 

Snow’s eyes widen and she opens her mouth to say something, but one look from Emma stops her.

 

 

 

 

“She doesn’t know,” Emma says eating a chopped carrot.

 

David is on babysitting duty, watching Henry and Regina play with kinetic sand, an excellent way to improve Regina’s motor skills as well as her hand’s strength. Prince Charming was rather impressed with this new sand and wanted to know how it worked so it was up to Snow and Emma to make dinner.

 

When Emma took two soup cans from the cabinet Snow rolled her eyes and went to see if she could find enough ingredients to make homemade soup. Five minutes later all she had in front of her was a couple of carrots, six small potatoes, celery, and four onions. Snow told Emma to start chopping while she had sent Henry to buy a chicken for the soup. Twenty minutes later the soup was halfway done and they were having a cup of cocoa.

 

“And Henry?”

 

“It’s hard for him. He wanted a kiss from his mother and a reassurance that everything is going to be okay and she can’t give either to him.”

 

Snow takes a sip of her drink and watches her husband and grandson. Regina is making something with the sand and Henry is watching her closely. Snow hadn’t seen him sit so close to either of his moms in years. “Still thinks it’s his fault?”

 

Emma gives her a half smile and it’s all the answers Snow needs.

 

“What her doctors say?”

 

“Her doctors say she’s a miracle.” She takes a sip and whiles her lips with her fingers before she continues. “The one patient no one expects to live let alone go home.”

 

“But she’s getting better, right?”

 

“Yeah.” Emma looks down to her drink. “Yeah.”

 

 

 

 

Despite Emma’s objections, Snow asks Regina to help her serve the soup. It’s a simple task, but Emma is hovering around in a not so subtle way and Snow holds the bowls while praying she won’t get second degree burns. She should have listened to Emma, but David and Henry set the table, Emma and her cooked, and she didn’t want Regina to feel left out.

 

“You got this,” Emma says to Regina and Snow smiles encouraging to the other woman.

 

It takes almost ten minutes, but no one gets burned and all five bowls are full with steamy soup. Henry sits next to his mom and, after Emma whispers something to his ear, David takes the other seat next to Regina leaving Snow and Emma to sit at the opposite side of the table.

 

Snow raises her glass. “To family.”

 

Emma groans and David has an amused look, but when Regina raises her glass with ashaky hand to a toast they all follow.

 

“To family.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to icequeen1955, Stephanie and Sam for their help. 
> 
> Every cliche in the book. You've been warned.


End file.
